Ski Aspen Accommodation

Book your Aspen ski accommodation direct with owners chalet apartment or hotel.

Aspen is well-known for its rich and famous guests, lots of whom have holiday homes here and private jets parked at the local airport. Jack Nicholson, Martina Navratilova, Jane Fonda and countless more are regulars. But don't let that put you off. Most celebs are keen to keep a low profile and disappear into the crowd, rather than be mobbed by adoring fans. Aspen has a lot going for it. Its four mountains between them offer a lot of skiing, with enough to keep every standard of skier interested. It has the biggest vertical drop in Colorado.

The town is a beautifully restored Victorian silver-mining town, with wide streets built in typical American grid fashion and a huge variety of restaurants, bars and plush shops. And the resort doesn't rest on its laurels - it is always devising new attractions and building new high-speed quads. The main drawback of the place is that you can spend a fortune. But you don't have to: Aspen need not cost more than any other major US resort.  Just over a century ago Aspen was a booming silver-mining town of 12,000 inhabitants, boasting six newspapers, an opera house and a red light district. But Aspen's fortunes took a nose-dive when the silver price plummeted in 1893, and by the 1930s the population had shrunk to 400 or so.

The historic centre has been beautifully renovated to form the core of what is now the most fashionable ski town in the Rockies. There's a huge variety of shops, bars, restaurants and galleries - though you may find some of the prices a deterrent. Spreading out from this centre, you'll find a mixture of developments, ranging from the homes of the super-rich, on the outskirts, to the mobile homes for the workers who now find it too expensive to buy or rent in Aspen.

There are four mountains, only one accessible from Aspen town. Skiing development started in Aspen on a small scale in the late 1930s. The first ski-lift (then the world's longest chair-lift) was opened shortly after the Second World War, and Aspen hasn't looked back since. By 1958, development of Buttermilk (now Tiehack) and Aspen Highlands had started. Snowmass opened in 1967.Getting around between the areas by free ski-bus is easy. Each area is big enough to keep you amused for a full day. And all of them have regular free guided tours. The Silver Queen gondola takes you from right in the heart of town to the top of Aspen Mountain in 15 minutes

Advertise ski accommodation in Aspen free.